Dead Weight  Chapter 1
by SwiftnessAndDeath
Summary: Alien - Kane x Lambert. Officer Lambert reflects on non-sequential memories of her brief and largely innocent relationship with Officer Kane.


Dead Weight

Chapter 1

Kane provided Lambert with both the most beautiful and the most horrific things she'd ever seen. Looking back, when he smiled at her, just at her, it was the loveliest sight she'd ever imagined. The most horrific, well, that one should be obvious.

Kane had these dark eyes, almost black eyes. They were never cold though, they were like espresso, soothing and cozy. She could lie beside him for hours and look at his eyes. She had to remember things like that now, because soon the memories of Thomas Kane would fade and detach, become hazy.

Lambert found herself thinking of these things as her own world crashed around her. She was not resigned to her fate, but she was not fighting it either—she was too terrified to do either. Tears clouded her sight and stung her eyes. She had cried too much for one person.

_"Perhaps you'd like some company." _

She still heard Kane's voice in her head, raspy words without reference now. She'd been working at the cryosettings for nearly an hour now, a tedious process that unfortunately kept them all alive. She was on her stomach under the freeze-beds, propped up on her elbows and still about to nod off to sleep herself. Kane came to a kneel beside her.

It was a year ago, she seemed to remember, or maybe a little more. Anyway, it was a long way from here. She wiped her face of the tears and pulled out another cigarette with her shaking fingers. Probably closer to a year and a half.

_Kane came to a kneel beside her and she could do nothing but smile, a rarity for her. He was the loveliest ex-alcoholic she'd ever seen. _

"_I could, yeah." She rested her head against her forearms, still looking up into his face. "I could use a goddamn nap."_

"_Isn't that what these are for?" He said with a small, barely-there laugh._

_She nodded and looked back to her work, far less interested (and far less bored) now. _

"_It's amazing, isn't it?" She said as she finished up and pulled back to a crouch. "All of this work is the only thing keeping us alive and it's still boring." _

_She was hoping to make him laugh again and he did, and she laughed too._

It was difficult to tell how old Kane was, but he was probably younger than he looked, she remembered. He had the tatty face of someone too old to be putting up with your bullshit. His body was taut, a little underfed, but much softer than his face. The first time Lambert saw him shirtless she had remarked on the concave dip just below his ribcage, touching it lightly with her middle finger. Kane had flinched and grabbed her hand.

"_Your hands are freezing, my dear!" He said playfully, cupping her hand between two of his and blowing on it. She flicked his nose while it was in reach. Then they kissed. _

These were flashes of memories, rapid and painful, that came while the smoke from her cigarette stung Lambert's eyes. She looked away for a moment and sobbed, causing the table to turn and look at her as if she was unreliable dead weight, a liability. She looked to their faces and stamped her cigarette out, bringing conversation to a standstill. These people weren't her friends. They'd let Kane die.

"What are you looking at?" She said to Ripley, her voice straining.

"You've got to pull it together." Ripley said, in her detached, cool tone that made Lambert want to rip her curls out.

There was another sob and Lambert looked to her hand for a beat before bringing it to her face to rub her tired eyes. Crying shouldn't be so exhausting, mourning shouldn't be so hurried. Dallas looked between the two women and said something Lambert didn't hear. Dead weight. In this situation, had he been alive to witness it, Kane would have been a liability as well. He was no fighter, he couldn't wield a flamethrower, and he couldn't stalk a killer. That was one thing they had in common, she and Kane—had he been here (and she wished very much that he was) he would have been sitting to the side, smoking as well.

_There were very few places on the Nostromo one could go and be comfortable as well as alone. Lambert didn't do well with large crews, and even the seven of the Nostromo seemed too much for her. She went to be alone and smoke often, picking different outlets of the ship to do so. Her duties were largely automatic—her job was essential but had long, dull patches of nothingness. She knew Ripley and Dallas came to the med bay to have sex and when she asked Kane there, she was partially worried he would interpret it incorrectly. She smoked like an oil fire waiting for him, sitting up on the table. Ash must have been on the deck, she hadn't seen him for a time._

_She stamped out another cigarette, drew her feet up to the table. He wasn't coming._

"_What's the most interesting thing that ever happened to you?" Kane asked, as she lay her head against his bare chest, both of them smoking._

"_Hmm. Me?" _

_She reached across him to ash her cigarette and Kane smiled, resting his hand against the small of her back._

"_Yes of course you!" He said, with a hoarse laugh._

_She leaned back in to his chest, resting her nose against it, closing her eyes._

"_When I was fourteen I caught a two-headed snake." She said, re-imagining the creature in her hands: her eyes wide, the snake sliding from palm to palm, trying to get away and never really moving an inch. "It was . . . brown, with two yellow stripes running down the side. Both heads had eyes, faces, you know. It was looking all aroud."_

_Kane looked down to her, stroking her back slowly with the tips of his fingers. It was either his touch or the memory that made her shiver._

"_Did you keep it?" _

"_God no." She opened her eyes to look up to him finally, bringing her cigarette back to her lips. "I was afraid of it, I think."_

_She inhaled on the cigarette and a pleasant calm lay over them for a moment. Kane seemed to be considering the tale, putting his hand out for a drag from her cigarette, which she gave readily. _

"_You were afraid of it, but it was the first thing you thought of when asked what the most interesting thing that ever happened to you was." He summarized, her cigarette between his lips. "Isn't that a beautiful thing about life?"_


End file.
